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Old 04-04-2012, 06:13 AM
  # 39 (permalink)  
m1k3
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Memphis, TN
Posts: 2,884
StillSleeping, you might like Buddhism. No god required. One of the main teachings of Buddhism is dependent co-arising. There is nothing that is independent from everything else, everything is interconnected. For example I often view myself as an independent person living in the universe, but in reality I'm not. I have genes from both my parents, who have genes from both their parents and so on and so forth back to single cell creatures living in the primordial ooze. But it goes even beyond that. I drink water, eat food, breathe air, all of which I can't live without. I am a part of this planet, made from chemicals and atoms that have existed here since the planet was born. And the planet is made of bits from suns that lived and died billions of years ago. If any of that is missing then no me.

So, while our sense of being an independent self can be useful it is an illusion.

Then to make it even worse, everything is changing. Everything is always changing and nothing is the same from day to day. I am not the same person that I was yesterday or 5 years ago or when I was a teenager. As the Buddha said, everything is on fire (change). The whole universe is burning, I am burning, you are burning, all is burning.

Pretty cool when you think about it. I am an illusion. There is no independent me and there is no me that exists beyond the current moment. I am constantly being born and dying over and over again from moment to moment and I am linked to everything that has ever happened that lead to this moment. Think of it as sitting in the front seat of a roller coaster racing up and down the track from moment to moment. The track you have already traveled had to exist exactly the way it did but it is just memories as you are no longer on that piece of track anymore. The future is the next piece of track racing towards you. You have no control over where you have been and no control over where you are going so you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.

Your friend,
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